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Marketing a book

You spend months pouring your soul into your creation. Finally it is complete and you sit back in your chair with a sigh. The sigh is because you know what’s coming next…….

Last year I wrote my first novel, The Porn Detective. I was certain the world was ready to hear about the effect that a man’s addiction to pornography has on his marriage. I self-published it and waited for the response.

Nothing.

I sent it off to a few agents. One replied that it was a great story, but it needed to be written in the third person instead of as a memoir in the first person. Other agents suggested the same thing, and also that I needed to build an author platform. One agent even suggested I cut out half of the events in the book and just concentrate on a couple and really draw them out.

I rewrote it, left all the events in, and re-published.

Nothing.

I looked into this ‘author platform’ malarkey. I opened up a Twitter account, a Facebook account, and started up a website. I plugged away until I was blue in the face

Hmm….. a bit more interest…..

I wrote 3 more books and added them to the website. I sought reviews from reputable sources. I plugged and plugged until I couldn’t plug any more. I joined the Koobug site and plugged away again.

Not bad,……….

I’ve just finished my fifth book – ‘No Sex Please, I’m Menopausal!’, a humorous look at a couples’ mid-life crisis. I’ve got to start up the whole marketing machinery again, but this time I’m a little bit more streetwise. I realise 95% of readers will probably gloss over my marketing efforts, but I hope to interest the remaining 5%. Who knows? Perhaps I will!